Poetry is.....

     When I think of the word "poetry" I think of a person's expression of how they feel at that moment.  I believe poetry comes from deep in the soul.  It can be happy, sad, about love, about death, or about life.  Although, I know some poems do not rhyme, I think of poetry as being rhythmic.  A great deal of songs are written from poetry.  I am a big Avett Brothers fan and most of their songs are written from poems, such as "I and Love and You."

"The Bear and The Deer"

Patrick Lane

Mrs. Watson

English 113--Section 103

Sonnet

May 30, 2011

Friends

There once was a black bear in the forest,
that befriended a dumb gullable deer.
They loved to take food from the scared tourist,
and smuggle all of the guys home brewed beer.

The deer told the bear, "the world is spinning!"
When he took a big swig of the great ale.
The bear had no care, he just kept grinning.
Then he tripped over a brewski filled pail.

The deer laughed and laughed at his drunken friend.
The bear fell and was covered in mud.

He soon found that drinking would be his end,
while the deer burped a bubble from a sud.

The bear now has no friend, nothing at all.
Just bundles of deer meat, ready for Fall.

Bibliography

"The Sonnet is a Versatile Poem of Fourteen Lines."  Literature:  An Introduction to Reading and

     Writing.  Ed.  Edgar V. Roberts. 9th ed.  New York:  Pearson, 2009. 900. Print.

To Divorce or Not to Divorce?

     I was brought up to believe that marriage is a commitment to your significant other for the rest of your life.  In Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog" the matter of staying with the one you are committed to and bound together in holy matrimony is not the case.  I understand there will always be temptation and it seems that married men are more tempting to women than single men are.  In the story Dmitri decides he is going to carry on this affair with Anna despite the fact that he is married.  In my case I personally believe that if you are going to marry someone that you do not need anyone else.  If you are going to cheat on your spouse as in Dmitri and Anna's case then why did you get married in the first place. 
     I think that you are going to want to have multiple partners or dates then you should just stay single.  Why would people go through the lengthy time period of marriage and divorce if they can not control their urges? You marry the one you love but it seems that with our 50%, or whatever it is presently, divorce rate that people are marrying more for the simple fact of saying they are married.  People are getting hitched to show off their friends or for social status.   Some are even getting married for financial security.   All the money in the world will not help an abusive relationship or a troubled marriage.  Go see a marriage therapist or something but stick to your word and vows.  Stay with your spouse, change things to make it better, and have fun with each other.

Thanks a Lot Buddy

    Most of us have borrowed something from a friend and forgot to return it or gave back a substitution.  My story is a bit different from the one in "The Necklace"  by Guy de Maupassant.  I lived in Greenville, NC for about 6 years.  I had 2 roomates that lived with me last year.  Both of my roomates were really good friends of mine.  I probably sound like a broken record because I tell this story a great deal of times, but it does imply with the same theory as "The Necklace."  My roomates and I would go play tennis which we considered a friendly game of competition.  I will just call them "J" and C" for privacy matters. 
     J and C went to play tennis one day when I had to work.   It must have been a "hardcore" match between the two because when I came back C handed me my tennis racket that he had borrowed back in shambles.  The strings were broke and the top right corner was bent.  His reply to me when I asked him what happened was that he ran into the fence trying to get to the ball.  He was a clumsy person so I laughed when I pictured it.  I was not too happy about not being able to play anymore because I did not have a racket now.  C told me that he would repay me with a new racket.  To make a long story short he came in one day with a $20 Walmart tennis racket when mine was about $50 and said, "Here you go man."  I was not too happy and to this day I can look back on it and laugh but it still gets to me a bit. 
    In "The Necklace," Mathilde did the opposite of what my roomate had done and lost a great deal of her life trying to repay Jeanne Forrestier with her diamond necklace to find it was fake.  I do not wish this to happen to C but it would have been nice for him to at least ask me what my "necklace" was valued at before he brought me back a piece of junk.
     Do any of you all have a similar story????

Formal Blog

Patrick Lane

Mrs. Watson

English 113 Section 102

Formal Blog

April 16, 2011

Just a Bit Pessismistic

     From "The Necklace" to "The Cask of Amontillado" it seems that all of the stories we have read have

had a tendency show the worst in all things.  Growing up I was taught to see the good in everyone and

everything despite the circumstances.  Audiences love to see a great ending to a story or a movie and are

even intrigued when the ending is terrible.  After reading our short stories I noticed that there were a great

deal of gloomy conclusions.  For example, in "The Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick, Rosa's baby, Magda, is thrown

against an electric fence and dies.  In "The Three Strangers" by Thomas Hardy, the Misfit and his gang,

murder an entire family and even the poor pleading grandmother gets it too.  Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

portrays a whole village of people stoning their neighbors because they are following tradition. 

     All of these stories makes you wonder do we as people really enjoy death and despair?  Maybe it is the

fact that the authors were "messed up" psycholigically.  None of the short stories we read in class had a

"story book" ending.  Hopefully we will read some poems that will give us all an optimistic outlook on life

because after this past section we are going to need it.

Works Cited

Hardy, Thomas.  "The Three Strangers."  Roberts, Edgar V.  Literature:  An Introduction to Reading and

     Writing,  9th Ed.  New York:  Longman, 2009.  287-300.

Jackson, Shirley.  "The Lottery."  Roberts, Edgar V.  Literature:  An Inroduction to Reading and Writing,

     9th Ed.  NewYork:  Longman, 2009.  141-145.

Maupassant, Guy de.  "The Necklace."  Roberts, Edgar V.  Literature:  An Introduction to Reading and

     Writing, 9th Ed.   New York:  Longman, 2009. 5-12.

Ozick, Cynthia.  "The Shawl."  Roberts, Edgar V.  Literature:  An Introduction to Reading and Writing,

     9th Ed.  New York:  Longman, 2009.  266-268.

Poe, Edgar Alan.  "The Cask of Amontillado."  Roberts Edgar V.  Literature:  An Introduction to Reading

     and Writing, 9th Ed.  New York:  Longman, 2009.  519-523.